Rise of Piracy
A dormant genre gets a fresh coat of paint Rise of Piracy is a solo-developed Early Access naval sim from IrishJohnGames, published by MicroProse Software, that casts players as a
6.5 / 10
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Games released in 2026
3102 games released in 2026 and reviewed here, best first.
Browse the reviews
3102 reviews
Roadside Research
A gas-station management sim where you're secretly aliens gathering intel on humanity — a great hook for a group of friends on a Friday night, let down by how little the alien half actually changes about restocking shelves and running a till.
6.5 / 10
Road to Omaha: College Baseball Dynasty
A deep, text-and-menu college baseball GM sim built by a single active developer, earning real devotion from dynasty-management fans logging dozens to well over a hundred hours, while a recurring progression-blocking bug locked several dedicated players out of their saves entirely.
6.5 / 10
Rocket Engineer Review
One Developer, One Solar System Rocket Engineer is a solo-developed 2D orbital mechanics sandbox from Xavier B., who took the game from a 2024 progress-update blog through more tha
6.5 / 10
Rocky Idle
A Melvor-flavoured skilling idler with eighteen skills and a collection log, sold as a clean one-time purchase — but a boost mechanic that gates achievements and a rocky launch identity crisis keep it from matching the game everyone will compare it to.
6.5 / 10
Rod of Asclepius
Rod of Asclepius casts the player as a Roman army doctor in a crumbling 4th-century frontier province, and this review's tiny but glowing sample finds genuinely striking historical writing wrapped around a turn-based medical RPG that multiple reviewers, and the solo developer's own words, describe as only the first of several planned chapters.
6.5 / 10
Rogue Blight
A visually stunning, solo-developed souls-like roguelite pairing Salt and Sanctuary aesthetics with a Slay the Spire-style map, whose art, atmosphere and boss design draw near-universal praise, undercut by a detailed, credible minority critique describing genuinely shallow combat, near-total absence of build variety and synergy, and repetitive boss encounters once the early hours wear off.
6.5 / 10
Rogue Breaker
A single-run, high-score arcade roguelike that grafts Breakout's paddle-and-bricks loop onto item-build synergy from over 120 randomised pickups, with permadeath ending every attempt and no persistent carryover between runs. Released 5 August 2026 with no user reviews and no press coverage yet.
6.5 / 10
Rogue Circuit Review
A Racing Game Where the Deckbuilding Is the Point Rogue Circuit's pitch is an unusual one: it's a racing game where the actual racing is often something you delegate rather
6.5 / 10
Rooster Review
A Zodiac Sent Back in Time to Learn Some Manners Rooster opens on a premise that's equal parts folklore and sitcom setup: the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac gather for th
6.5 / 10
Royalty Free-For-All
A visually gorgeous, hand-animated Smash Bros-style platform fighter built entirely around reimagined public-domain characters, widely praised for its art, music and welcoming accessibility, undercut by a genuine identity crisis between competitive and party-game design, a small fourteen-character roster with only three or four attacks each, and launch-week technical rough edges the developer has been patching quickly.
6.5 / 10
R-Type Tactics I • II Cosmos
A long-awaited Western release for a beloved PSP tactics duology, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 — genuinely treasured by the fans who've waited seventeen years for it, and genuinely undercut for newcomers by aggressive upscaling artifacts and a control scheme that inherited its handheld-era clunkiness without ever being modernised.
6.5 / 10
Rune Log
A solo-developed cryptogram game dressed as occult detective fiction — decode short runic scriptures with frequency analysis and context, then type your own conclusion about what really happened.
6.5 / 10
Rutrum
A physics roguelike that fuses Suika-style gem-merging with deckbuilding, earning a unanimous but small early Positive reception for its satisfying merge chains and character variety, while reviewers are candid about confusing early mechanics, short repetitive runs, and difficulty that trivialises once the right item appears.
6.5 / 10
Saint of Chains
A retro-inspired first-person psychological horror game from MystiveDev drawing heavily on Silent Hill and Cry of Fear, Very Positive across its English review sample for atmosphere and a surprisingly personal story, with fair, widely repeated complaints about derivative writing and thin melee combat.
6.5 / 10
S.A.N.D.Y. - Beach Cleaner
A short, gorgeous, quietly unsettling cozy game about a little robot cleaning a post-apocalyptic beach — a WALL-E riff with real atmosphere, undercut by a runtime that most players finish in under two hours.
6.5 / 10
Scale the Depths
A cozy incremental fishing game from Glass Gecko Games, casting players as a fishmonger who catches, cleans, and sells creatures across four themed zones, Very Positive across 1,840 reviews for its satisfying cleaning minigames and charming art — with a widely repeated complaint that upgrades and money reset to zero at every new zone.
6.5 / 10
Scarlet Deer Inn Review: A Hand-Embroidered Dark Fairy Tale With a Rough Second Act
Attu Games' debut is one of the most visually distinctive indies of the year — every character sprite is literally embroidered by hand — wrapped around a Slavic folk-horror story about a mother searching for her missing children. The presentation is close to flawless; the platforming, torch-lit cave sections, and launch-week bugs are where it stumbles.
6.5 / 10
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Scarlet Skips Review
A One-Button Jump Rope Roguelike With an Unexpectedly Earnest Framing Story Scarlet Skips takes one of the most mundane physical activities imaginable — jumping rope — and builds a
6.5 / 10
Scratch Off!
A Balatro-inspired roguelike that swaps poker hands for scratch cards, building a deck of coins and modifiers to scratch your way past an ever-rising rent payment, praised for a genuinely addicting core loop once it clicks but held back by harsh early-run RNG and a thin content pool that several reviewers had already exhausted within a couple of hours.
6.5 / 10
Sealed Bite: Extended Review
A Bite-Sized Metroidvania That Knows Exactly How Long It Wants To Be Sealed Bite: Extended, a solo project from developer Ruben S. Luis published by Pineapple Works, released on St
6.5 / 10
Secrets of Velendar Castle - Escape Room Review
A Fantasy Castle Escape Room Built On The Bones Of A Loved Predecessor Secrets of Velendar Castle - Escape Room, developed by Biri Biri and published by mc2games, released on Steam
6.5 / 10
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Serpent's Gaze Review
A Souls-like Roguelite Built From the Ground Up for Co-op Serpent's Gaze throws one to four players into a punishing, run-based desert full of tough enemies and relentless boss
6.5 / 10
Servant of the Lake
A prequel entry in Rusty Lake's long-running point-and-click puzzle series, set at the Vanderboom estate in 1839, that lands as polished and newcomer-friendly enough to draw broad praise from its huge review sample while facing a specific, well-documented backlash from longtime fans who feel its puzzles and atmosphere have been smoothed over.
6.5 / 10